This is the second part in a series on Peaceful Village, a small municipality in northwest Jefferson County with about 90 residents. The Village was incorporated in 2008 under the leadership of Jack Walters, who owned and operated a church and camp on 78 acres of land on Antire Road near High Ridge.
Until recently, Peaceful Village’s physical documents were stored in a giant Rubbermaid tub with virtually no rhyme or reason to how they were tossed into it, said Kelly Fagala, the village’s Board of Trustees chairwoman.
Other documents were scattered amongst current and past board members’ homes or offices or missing altogether, she said.
Since last summer, Fagala said, she and Danielle Shannon, the village’s clerk and custodian of records, have worked to make sense of the filing system.
Fagala said there was a time when meticulous records were kept in the tub, from when the village was first incorporated in 2008 to about 2017, when Dan Ross Jr. purchased the All God’s Children church in Peaceful Village from Jack Walters and changed the name to New Hope Fellowship Church.
Ross Jr. and his son, Daniel Ross III, are both pastors at the church. Ross III is also a Peaceful Village board member.
In an effort to organize the village’s records, Fagala said, she and Shannon assigned a file folder for each year the town has been incorporated and sorted documents into those folders.
“By the time Danielle and I emptied the bin, what we saw was that from 2008 to 2017, our file folders were just packed full of papers and information,” Fagala said. “Starting in 2017, the files got a little thinner. In 2018, there are a couple of sheets of paper. From 2019 to 2024, some of those files are completely empty.”
Fagala said the village is missing documents needed to fulfill two delinquent financial reports to the state for 2022 and 2023 because of the village’s scattered recordkeeping system. It’s difficult to file those reports due to missing or nonexistent ledgers, which would help explain from where or whom the village received revenue, Fagala said.
Shannon becomes clerk
Shannon was elected to the board in 2021 and reelected as clerk during the April 2024 municipal election.
She said Rachel Ross, a village board member and wife to Daniel Ross, encouraged her to run for the position.
“Rachel said it didn’t really entail anything, that they would just put my name down,” Shannon said. “People would have to vote me in, and then they really wouldn’t have to ask me to do anything after that.”
Shannon said she and her family regularly attended New Hope Fellowship Church services until she said her family was barred from entering the church following a Feb. 14 Peaceful Village special meeting. At the meeting, Shannon and Fagala questioned the legality of Daniel Ross’ past board actions.
“If anyone, including my pastor, thinks I’m in a position that I want to be in, they’re highly mistaken,” Shannon said. “All of my kids, besides my little one, went to Daniel’s youth (ministry) every Wednesday. It’s not an easy position to be in.”
Fulfilling records requests
Shannon said after she became clerk, she grew concerned about a pending records request for village documents, which had yet to be fulfilled even though it was submitted in December 2023.
According to Missouri Sunshine Law, public records requests must be fulfilled within three days unless the government entity can prove a reasonable cause for delay.
High Ridge resident Jon Jerome said he requested the records to learn more about the village’s annexation of property next door to his home. The property, which Ross Jr. and Ross III owned at the time, was developed into two sober living homes, and Jerome said they were built too close to Antire Road and to his property line, violating Jefferson County building codes.
Jerome said the Peaceful Village board wanted $4,500 to fulfill his records request for the village’s charter; all laws passed since 2010; board minutes; building permits and inspections; engineering plans and surveys; and code books. Both Ross Jr. and Ross III were members of the village’s board of trustees when Jerome requested the records.
When asked if he believes it was a conflict of interest to make decisions regarding the Sunshine request when he owned the property in question, Ross III said the village doesn’t have a conflict-of-interest policy and never has had one.
Ross said the charge was justified, given the extensive list of documents Jerome was asking for and the village’s scattered record system.
“It seemed like it was a huge request because the documents weren’t necessarily in order,” he said. “It seemed like it was going to take a long time to get it all sorted out. While the number is huge, it did seem in line with how we interpreted the law. We received the documents in a tub, and he was asking for board minutes from 2010.”
Under Missouri Sunshine Law, a public entity may charge up to 10 cents per page for standard paper copies. The entity also may charge the average hourly rate of pay for clerical staff to conduct research and to make the copies needed to fulfill the request.
Jerome filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office claiming the village’s fee to fulfill the records request was unreasonable.
In response to an inquiry from the Attorney General’s office, Ross III replied in a letter dated Jan. 29, 2024, justifying the costs for the request.
“We understand the importance of compliance with Missouri’s Sunshine Law,” he wrote. “These costs are strictly in accordance with the guidelines provided under the law, reflecting the actual cost incurred in fulfilling this request without any profit or additional markup.”
Jerome disagreed.
“Each of these figures has been exaggerated, are blatantly false and intended to obfuscate the requested information,” Jerome said at a Feb. 11 informal meeting in Peaceful Village. “It’s crap, and somebody should be held accountable. The people who perpetrated it should answer to the public why this was.”
Fagala added that the village doesn’t have several of the items in Jerome’s request, such as building or zoning codes.
“I don’t know how you’re going to charge someone a certain amount of money for something the village doesn’t even have,” she said. “Right now, we don’t require any kind of building code or zoning. I could stick a Taco Bell in my backyard and nobody can stop me, which my kids think is a great idea.”
Shannon said she asked Ross for an update on Jerome’s request, and he responded that the Attorney General’s office is looking into it and gave her the following advice: “I wouldn’t poke a sleeping bear if they’re not asking us for anything. I’m pretty sure it’s over.”
Ross refuted Shannon’s recollection of events, saying the board was waiting for the Attorney General’s office to provide guidance.
“First of all, I’ve never used that analogy in my life. Second, I did attempt to follow up with the Attorney General’s Office a few times, and we didn’t hear back for months at a time,” he said. “It was a complicated Sunshine request. There’s a lot to it, especially for a volunteer board. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
Fagala said it took her and Shannon three weeks to fulfill Jerome’s request, 11 months after it was submitted.
“I believe that the request was handled unfairly,” Fagala said. “I believe it was irresponsible to let it linger, or just be ignored, for months and months. I wasn’t there at the time, but based on the lack of transparency that certain board members have continuously attempted to engage in, I think it’s entirely possible that the astronomical, ridiculous amount was requested so that the board could avoid releasing those documents to the public.”
Click here to read more of the Peaceful Village story series.